


Love Thy Neighbor

by Lynx22281



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Kid Fic, Librarian Castiel, M/M, Mechanic Dean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-10 13:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4393151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx22281/pseuds/Lynx22281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel didn't give much beyond a passing thought about the new family who moved into the house next to his until he came home from work one day to find the kid locked out and crying on the porch.  Soon, he found more than just his thoughts occupied by the family next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter has been sitting around in a folder for a long time. It's the thing I've been putting off on writing while I tried to finish other things. I even thought about saving it for a future DCBB. However, I'm in a bit of a writing slump right now and can't seem to build any steam for finishing Sanctifying Grace or Dance of Feather and Claw, and I can't get my head wrapped around a new part for Howl at the Moon. So, I'm going in a completely different direction to see if it gets the creativity flowing again.

It was Castiel's favorite time of day.  After hours of running around the library doing other people's research, he could finally curl up on his sofa with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, Grace snuggled up purring and warm against his hip, and an open book on his lap.  He was half-way through a bag of paperback murder-mysteries that Chuck had loaned him last week.  They weren’t his usual reads, but sometimes it was nice to have something light that he could zip through in a couple of days.  

 

He pulled into the driveway of his cozy little two-bedroom house with its big picture window looking out over the neatly trimmed postage-stamp sized front yard.  The late summer flowers crowding around the fence between his yard and his neighbor’s yard were starting to fade as the daylight hours of late September grew shorter.  Pretty soon he’d have to devote a Saturday to winterizing his lawn and maybe planting a few pansies and ornamental cabbages to keep some color around the outside of his house during the cold months until spring.

 

After shutting off the engine, he slid out of the car and tugged on his tie to loosen it.  His stomach gave a hungry grumble.  Professor Callahan had had him digging through the history section for books about feudal Japan and he'd gotten so wrapped up in the project that he'd forgotten to eat his lunch.  He wondered if he had broth and noodles in the pantry that he could throw into a pot with the leftover roast chicken from last night for a quick soup.

 

A loud sniffle turned his attention away from thoughts of food and settling in for the evening.

 

Furrowing a brow, Castiel looked over towards his neighbor’s house.  A dark-haired, freckle-faced little boy was sitting on the porch step with his knees hugged tightly to his chest.  His back shuddered with heavy sobs.

 

Castiel vaguely remembered meeting the kid and his dad shortly after they moved into the house next door back in May.  He knew the boy’s name was Ben because he’d occasionally heard his mom yelling for him to come in from the backyard for dinner.  There was usually a blue Honda sedan or a behemoth old black Chevy sitting in the driveway.  Today, the driveway was empty.

 

He gave his front door a longing look before veering off to the right to look over the waist-high picket fence.  He didn’t usually get involved with his neighbors.  Not that he was antisocial.  He just preferred to grant them their privacy in the hopes that they would respect his.  But something told him this wasn’t just a kid who had gotten in trouble for something and was having a pout about it on the stoop.  There was a strong hint of desperation in the way he was bawling into his knees.

 

“Hey, uh…Ben.  I’m Mr. Novak.   I’ve live next door.”  He gestured up to his house, not taking his eyes off the upset youngester.  “Are you ok?”

 

The little boy, who by Castiel’s best guess had to be at least school-aged since he saw the kid and his dad waiting at the end of their driveway for the bus nearly every morning, jerked up at the sound of his voice.  For a brief instant, he looked extremely wary before recognition bled across his face.  He stood up and barreled down his driveway, book bag thumping against his back as his ran, before turning right at the sidewalk and running up Castiel’s drive.  Without any hesitation, he promptly threw his arms around the man’s legs and buried his wet face into his hip.

 

“I’ll take that as a no.”  Castiel's arms flew up not knowing what to do with the kid wrapped around him.  After a few uneasy seconds, he slowly reached down to nervously pat the boy’s head.  He wasn’t used to dealing with children.  Even when he was a child, he preferred his own company and that of the adults in his life over the company of other kids.  His favorite companions had been book characters, who never had an opinion about his weird name, lack of siblings, or absent father.

 

Gently, he extracted himself from the boy’s grasp and knelt down to be at eye level with him.  “What’s wrong?”

 

Ben breathed in on a hiccup.  “I…I got off…off the bus and L-Lena was…wasn’t here.  My dad’s…s’not here…either.”  At the mention of his dad, the waterworks started up again, even harder than before.

 

“Ok.  Who’s Lena?”

 

“M-my babysitter.”

 

So, the pretty dark-haired lady who called him in for dinner wasn’t his mom.

 

“My d-dad was…a’posed to be home t-today.”  Ben swiped the crusty sleeve of his red hoodie against his nose leaving a slug-trail of fresh snot on the cuff.

 

“Do you know your dad’s cell number?  We can use my phone to call him.”

 

Ben nodded, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out.  His brown eyes got big and his face squished up again.  Wailing, he said, “I forgot it!”

 

“Hey, hey.  It’s ok.”  Castiel laid his hands on the boy’s thin shoulders, squeezing them in what he hoped was a comforting manner.  He glanced over at his watch.  It was shortly after five o’clock.  The elementary school bus usually made it to their neighborhood around quarter to four.  The kid had been waiting all alone for well over an hour.  It was no wonder he was so distraught.

 

Ben sucked in his lower lip, mouth turned down in a deep frown.  “Did my dad die?”

 

“What?”  Castiel looked at him in shock for several seconds before he rushed to reassure him.  Where in the world did that come from?  What kid went straight to the worst case scenario when there was obviously just some weird schedule snafu going on?  “No.  No.  I’m sure your dad’s fine.  He probably just had to work late.”

 

He sighed and glanced around the neighborhood hoping for a bolt of inspiration as to what to do with the kid.  He couldn’t even remember Ben’s dad’s first name, much less what the man did for a living or where he worked, if his new neighbor had even gone that far in detail when they introduced themselves over the fence months ago.  The only reason he knew their last name was because _Winchester_ was painted on their mailbox.  There really wasn’t any feasible way for him to figure out how to contact the man.  His only option was to bring Ben inside and wait for his dad to get home.

 

“Are you hungry?”  Castiel remembered always being ravenous when he got home from school and his mom always had a peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwich with a tall glass of cold milk waiting for him on the counter.

 

Ben nodded, perking up at the mention of food.

 

“Ok. Let’s go make a snack while we wait for your dad to come home.”  He dropped his hands from the boy’s shoulders, but offered one out for him to take.  Ben promptly slid a slightly snotty hand into Castiel’s and walked beside him up to the house.

 

“You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”  Castiel unlocked the front door and led his new acquaintance into the house. 

 

He shook his head, looking around the living room.  “No, but my dad is.  Nana has a cat.  Daddy doesn’t go over to Nana’s house because Duchess and Mallory make him sneeze.”

 

The walls of the front room were lined with bookcases filled with hundreds of books.  It looked more like a tiny library than a living room.  An old overstuffed floral sofa and a patched brown leather armchair were set around a low coffee table that held a stack of magazines and a bonsai tree in a blue ceramic pot.  A spinet piano sat under the front window with a line of books on top flanked by two heavy brass horsehead bookends.  There was no TV in the room, but there was an old turntable in a wooden cabinet in the corner next to the piano. 

 

Grace reclined regally on the back of the sofa, her big fluffy gray tail swishing idly as she watched the front door.  As soon as she spied the small child at Castiel’s side, she leapt for the floor and skittered down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

 

“You can put your stuff by the door.  Don’t mind Gracie.  She doesn’t like strangers,” he said as he watched his neurotic kitty hightail it away from potentially grabby, grubby hands.

 

Ben dropped his jacket and _Batman_ knapsack in a heap on the floor by the front door and then followed Castiel to the sunny kitchen.

 

“I don’t have many snacks,” he said as he started opening cabinets.  The nearly bare cupboards signaled that it was time for a grocery run. “Do you like peanut butter sandwiches?”

 

Ben clambered up onto a stool at bar that separated the kitchen from the living room.  “Yep.  I like the crusts though.  Tommy Wilkins says I’m weird because I eat the crusts.  But they’re the best part.”

 

Castiel chuckled as he pulled the jar of Jif from the cabinet and turned to grab the loaf of bread from the breadbox by the stove.  “I like the crusts too.”

 

They chatted idly, talking about anything to keep the kid’s mind off of his current predicament, and Castiel learned a few things about his new acquaintance.  Ben was in first grade at the nearby elementary school.  His teacher was Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Fitzgerald had a puppet named Mr. Fizzles.  There was a girl who tried to kiss him every day at recess, but he was the fastest runner in his class and he always got away from her.  He liked cats, but he liked dogs better.  He wanted a dog for Christmas, but his dad said they didn’t have room for one right now.  There was room for a whole pack of dogs at his old house.

 

Ben got quiet after mentioning his old house and started picking at the last quarter of his sandwich.

 

Castiel caught a glimpse of the tears gathering in the corners of the kid’s eyes.  “Do you have any homework?”

 

Ben sniffled quietly and nodded.  “I’m supposed to read one of my library books.  But, my house is locked.”

 

“You can borrow one of my books, if you’d like,” Castiel offered as he put away the snack making supplies.

 

“Do you have any little kid books?  All of your books look like big people books.  I…I can’t read big people books yet.  But I can read little kid books.  Daddy always reads to me before bed, but now I can read to him too.” Ben beamed proudly.  “I like _Fast Freddie_ books.  They have cars like the one my dad drives.  My dad’s car is awesome!”

 

"I don't have any _Fast Freddie_ books,” Castiel confessed as he swiped breadcrumbs from the counter into the sink and turned on the tap to flush them down the drain.  He wasn’t up to speed on the latest children’s book series since his days were spent surrounded by the dull tomes of academia.  “But I might have something you’d like to read for your homework.” 

 

Castiel started collecting books when he was Ben’s age and hadn’t stopped.  He had every book he’d ever been given as a gift or purchased on his own, including all of his childhood books.  His mother had given them to him when he moved into his house several years ago saying that he’d want them for his children someday.  The thought was laughable since he was a 35-year-old gay man who had completely given up on ever having a family of his own.

 

Castiel led Ben down the short hallway to the small guest bedroom, which was filled with more shelves of books.  The room did house a twin bed for those rare occasions when one of his cousins was in town and wanted to stop by for a visit.  But it was mostly used as another repository for his ever growing collection.

 

Ben quickly spied the bookcase full of thin, brightly colored children’s books, dashing over to it and flopping down on his knees in a manner that made Castiel wince.  He started going book by book, opening each one, putting some in a stack on the floor, and returning others to the shelf before Castiel decided to help speed up the process by picking out his favorite six books for Ben to choose from.  With books in hand, they headed back out to the living room to settle on the sofa with an old recording of Mozart piano sonatas playing quietly in the background.

 

When Ben finally decided on a book for his homework, he ran over to his bookbag to retrieve his assignment sheet so Castiel could read the instructions.  Apparently, the weekly Thursday night homework involved reading a book and then sharing it with the class the next day, sort of the first grade version of a book report.

 

Together they read _Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day_.  The boy was a pretty good reader for being just a month into first grade and didn’t need any help sounding out any of the words.  Castiel suspected that he had started school with a pretty good vocabulary under his belt and mentally blessed his dad for having the sense to make sure his kid was prepared for school.  He just hoped Ben wouldn’t get too bored if he kept excelling and reading at a higher level than his peers. 

 

They read the story twice before Ben gave a practice run of summarizing what he read with Castiel acting as his substitute audience.  By the time Ben had practiced three times and had tucked the book in his bag, the mantel clock chimed six o’clock.  They headed back into the kitchen to throw together a quick dinner.  As luck would have it, there was half a bag of fat egg noodles and a box of chicken broth in the pantry, so they could make soup.  Ben shredded the leftover chicken into a bowl while Castiel emptied the broth into a pot.

 

Dinner was had at the little table in the kitchen’s breakfast nook over more conversation.  Ben filled the quiet house with childish enthusiasm telling the older man about every single student in his class, the art projects that they were working on for Halloween, and the entire plot line of the _Fast Freddie_ books, which were about an 8-year-old named Freddie whose dad was a race car driver.  

 

After dinner, they went back to the living room.  He expected Ben to whine about not having a TV, but instead the boy grabbed the five other books Castiel had picked out for him from the coffee table and climbed into the arm chair to read to himself.  Glad that he wasn’t being called on to entertain his young guest, Castiel sank into the corner of the couch with the novel he had been reading the night before. 

 

Ben was an extraordinary kid.  He was helpful, smart, and polite, and while he could be a little chatterbox, he was also perfectly content to sit quietly with a book. 

 

It wasn’t exactly how Castiel had planned to spend his evening, but it hadn’t been bad.  He still had his soup and his book.  Grace had refused to come out of the bedroom, even when he ran the can opener announcing that it was dinner time, but at least he had Ben’s company.

 

When he took his empty coffee mug to the sink, he noticed the lights were on in the house next door and the long black car was parked in the driveway.

 

“Hey, Ben,” he called.  “Your dad’s home.”

 

Castiel walked back into the living room and helped Ben put on his jacket and knapsack.  He was surprised when Ben grabbed hold of his hand and dragged him out of the house.

 

“C’mon!  Let me show you my books.  I don’t have as many as you do.  You can borrow my _Fast Freddie_ books since you let me borrow your book.“ 

  
Castiel chuckled as they headed up the Winchesters’ driveway.  Ben broke away to make a dash up the porch and into the house, calling for his dad.  Castiel followed at a more sedate pace.  He wasn’t going to just leave Ben at the doorstep without giving an explanation to the boy’s father. 

 

*****

 

When Dean came home to an empty driveway, a dark house and no sign of his son, his heart fluttered up into his throat.  He tore through the small house, flicking on all the lights.

 

“Ben?!” 

 

No answer. 

 

Ben always came when he was called.  Even when he attempted to hide, his giggles always gave him away.  Though he knew it’d do no good, Dean searched under the beds, in the closets, even behind the shower curtain.  The little house was unnaturally silent.  There was no one there.

 

Panic made his hands shake as he reached for the phone on the wall next to the refrigerator.   Ben’s grandparents had finally done it.  They had finally stolen his son away from him.  They’d tried for months to legally take Ben from him arguing in court that their daughter never intended for a sperm donor to be responsible for her son if something ever happened to her, that she would have wanted her son raised by her own family. 

 

They seemed to have selective memory issues since Lisa’s sperm donor had been her best friend of nearly twenty years, had been the one to offer her a bed to sleep in after her parents threw her out of their house when she came out to them, had been closer to her than her own family.  Not to mention the fact that he had been listed on legally binding documents as Ben’s guardian should anything happen to her and Anna. 

 

The court shouldn’t have even gotten involved in the issue in the first place, but the Braedens had more money than they knew what to do with and could keep throwing it at lawyers who would do anything to keep getting paid.  Dean knew he would have lost the case and all the papers he and Lisa and Anna had signed before Ben was conceived would have been tossed out the window had it not been for his brother taking on his case pro bono.

 

It took the sound of the operator’s voice asking what his emergency was for him to realize he had actually dialed 911, but before he could open his mouth to answer the front door opened and Ben ran in.

 

“Daddy!”  He suddenly had an armful of wiggly six-year-old.   “I made a new friend!”

 

Dean muttered an apology to the dispatcher and hung up the phone just as his knees gave way and he crashed to the floor.

 

“Jesus, Ben,” he breathed out on a sigh of relief as he hugged his boy tight, his hand resting gently on the back of his head.  “I thought…”

 

Ben was talking a mile a minute, completely oblivious to his dad's distress, but Dean couldn't hear him over the blood roaring in his ears.  He just breathed in the stale scent of Ben’s hair, willing his thundering heart to slow down.  Ben was home.  He was fine.  Nothing had happened to him.

 

Someone cleared their throat.

 

Dean tensed immediately, tightening his arms around Ben, protecting him against the stranger who had suddenly appeared in their house. 

                                                                                                                                            

The vaguely familiar man in his living room gave a little half wave.  “Hi, Mr. Winchester.  I’m Castiel Novak.  I live next door.”

 

Dean blinked, not sure why his neighbor was standing in his house.  He and Ben weren’t quite on friendly terms with any of the neighbors yet.  Between Dean’s long hours at work and Lena keeping Ben on a short leash in the afternoons, they hadn’t gotten around to making themselves known or finding out the who’s-who of Meadowbrook Lane.

 

“Mr. Novak is awesome, Dad!  His house is full of books!  And he has a cat name Gracie, but she isn’t very friendly.  He made me a peanut butter sandwich and soup and helped me do my homework and let me borrow a book for…”

 

“Hey, buddy,” Dean interrupted his son’s stream of conscious jabber.  “Why don’t you go feed Oscar before he grows legs and raids the fridge?”

 

“Ok!” Ben ran over to the kitchen counter to feed the inky blue Beta fish swimming sedately in a glass bowl.

 

Dean took a minute to watch Ben and gather his own wits about him before he turned his attention to the man he had only met once, very briefly, when they were moving into the house.  He stood up and walked into the living room.  “So, I guess you’re Ben’s new friend?”

 

Castiel shrugged softly.  “I suppose so.  When I got home, Ben was sitting all by himself on your porch so I brought him over to my house.  He finished his homework and I made him dinner.  Did something happen to your babysitter?”

 

Dean sat down on the couch, his head dropping down into his hands.  His nerves were still on edge.  With a sigh, he shook his head.  “Guess I gotta call and find out.  Lena takes Thursday nights off since I usually get home in time to meet Ben at the bus.  But the guy who was supposed to come in for the late shift at the shop called in sick at the last minute and I had to call our backup sitter.”

 

“Mr. Novak!”  Ben rushed into the living room and grabbed Castiel’s hand again.  “Come see my room!”

 

“Ben, let’s let Mr. Novak head home.  I’m sure he probably had other plans tonight.  Plus, since you’ve already done your homework and had food, it’s bath time.”

 

The kid threw back his head and whined.  “But, Daaaaaaaaaaaad.”

 

Dean watched his neighbor fight against the smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth.  He furrowed a brow, finally calmed down enough to really notice the man.  The guy was handsome – messy dark hair, dark blue eyes, and pale kissable lips.  Dean blinked and hurriedly looked away.  He didn’t have time to get interested in anybody now that he had Ben and was still helping support his youngest brother through college.  

 

“Maybe some other time, Ben,” Castiel said kindly.

 

Ben huffed a rejected sigh before brightening again.  “Can I borrow some more of your books?”

 

Dean raised a brow at the question.  His kid was a voracious reader (and yeah…he was totally proud of that fact, though it was all Anna’s doing), but he couldn’t imagine that their neighbor would have much that the boy could handle.  “I’m sure Mr. Novak has better things to do than play librarian for little boys.”

 

“I don’t mind.  Books are meant to be read, not just take up space on a shelf.”

 

“Great!  Thanks, Mr. Novak!” Ben beamed and ran off to the back of the house without further coaxing.

 

Castiel turned to Dean and smiled as he made a move towards the front door.  “I totally understand if you don’t want your son visiting a strange man’s house.  I can always drop some books off in your mailbox, if you’d prefer.”

 

“That’s not a bad idea,” Dean said, standing up from the couch pulling his wallet from his back pocket as he followed his neighbor to the door.  “Get him in a room full of books, he might never leave.”

 

“Oh, no.”  Castiel held up his hands and shook his head as Dean started rifling through his wallet.  “It was no problem.”

 

“Seriously, you took in my kid.  Let me pay you something for your trouble.”  Thankfully there was a ten-dollar bill, a five, and three ones inside.  This late in the month, he was more likely to find receipts in the bill slot of his wallet than actual cash.

 

“No.  I was just being…you know, neighborly.  Maybe you can pick up my mail if I ever go on vacation,” Castiel said with a shrug as he opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch.

 

“Sure thing.  Mail, newspaper, mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, whatever.  I owe you big,” Dean replied with a smile as he tucked his wallet back in his pocket.

 

They paused out on the porch.  It was mostly dark, the sky only slightly pinkish gray in the far west where the sun had already sunk below the horizon.

 

“Ben’s a good kid.  It was really no problem,” Castiel reassured him again.

 

Dean reached back inside to flick on the light so Castiel wouldn’t have to pick his way across the lawn in the dark. He smiled at the praise of his son.  If there was one thing he ever did right in his life, it was agreeing to help out Lisa and Anna and become Ben’s dad.  “Well, I can’t thank you enough.”

 

Castiel reached into the pocket of his slacks pulling out his own wallet.  He pulled out a business card and a stubby pencil, hastily scratching down something on the back of the card.  “Here are my numbers.  If you or Ben needs anything, just give me a call.  I’m usually home by 3:30 if you get in a bind and need someone to watch him.”

 

“God, I hope this doesn’t happen again.”  Dean wasn’t sure he’d survive another scare like that.  He really needed to get guardianship papers drawn up so Sam and Jess would take Ben if something happened to him.  His neighbor handed the card to him and he studied it in the harsh yellow glow of the porch light.  _Mr. Castiel Novak, MLS_ was a research librarian at the University of Illinois-Pontiac.   Dean flicked the card with his index finger and smiled.  “Thanks so much, Mr. Novak.”

 

“You’re welcome, and please, call me Cas,” Castiel offered as he held out his hand.

 

“Dean,” he replied, giving his neighbor his patented lady-killer smile.

 

“Dean,” Castiel said with a shy smile as he shook Dean’s hand.   

 

Dean’s eyes flicked up from their clasped hands to Castiel’s eyes.  Something deep inside him melted just a little bit.  He’d made lots of new connections since moving to Pontiac after Lisa and Anna died – his co-workers at the garage, Ben’s teachers, Missouri Mosley the social worker who had been assigned to them during the court case and still kept tabs on them just because she now considered them family, Charlie Bradbury down at the public library – but this felt different.  Castiel’s face softened slightly, his smile becoming a little warmer.

 

Ben broke the spell between them when he appeared at Dean’s hip.  “Bye, Mr. Novak!”

 

“Goodnight, Ben, Dean,” their neighbor said, breaking eye contact with Dean and turning his smile to Ben before heading down the porch steps and back over to his own house.

 

“Dad, I like Mr. Novak,” Ben said matter-of-factly as Dean shut and locked the front door.

 

 _Me too._   Dean didn’t normally trust people so easily, especially not with his kid.  Hell, he hadn’t been totally on board with letting Adam babysit Ben over the summer at first, and Adam was his own brother.  But there seemed to be an inherent good about Castiel that didn’t let Dean's usual wariness get the better of him.  Or maybe it was just he had been so scared when he got home that his wits went flying out the window.  Still, it probably wasn’t a good idea for his son to think it was ok to head next door whenever the mood struck him. 

 

“I’m glad you and Mr. Novak get along, but you can’t go bothering him all the time, capisce?”

 

“Yeah, ok.  I capisce.”  Ben sighed, but nodded.

 

“Good boy.  Now it’s bath time.”  With a grin, Dean scooped his son up and blew a raspberry on his exposed stomach.   Ben squealed as they headed down the hall towards the bathroom.

 

****

 

Just a few yards away, Castiel closed his front door and leaned back against it.  Grace trotted out from the kitchen.  Apparently she'd come out of her hiding spot in search of dinner once she finally deemed the area safe again after the small intruder in her domicile had been escorted away. 

 

“Mrrp,” she chirped inquisitively up at him after sitting daintily in front of him with her tail curling around her paws.

 

“I’m in trouble,” he confessed on an exhale.


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel returned home after grocery shopping on Friday afternoon to see a very somber looking Dean standing in the Winchesters’ darkening front yard talking to a short black woman. Neither of them smiled as they turned to watch him pull into his driveway and get out of his Continental. Castiel had been looking forward to his next encounter with his neighbors, hoping it would be less stressful than the first, but it didn’t seem like that was going to be this case. 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean called after Castiel shut the driver’s side door. “You got a minute?”

“Sure,” he replied, gesturing towards his trunk. “Just let me get my groceries in first.”

“We can help with that,” Dean offered, leading the lady around the fence separating their yards and to the back of Castiel’s car where they each grabbed a couple of shopping bags before following Castiel to the porch.

“Where’s Ben?” Castiel asked, shifting his bags to one arm so he could unlock the door.

“Sleepover at a friend’s house,” Dean answered as he passed into the house and headed towards the kitchen.

The woman accompanying Dean gave Castiel a gentle smile, completely at ease with being recruited to help a total stranger bring in his groceries. Once they unloaded their bags onto the kitchen counters, Castiel quickly pulled out the things that needed to be put in the refrigerator, leaving the rest for later.

“Can I get either of you something to drink?” he asked motioning towards the fridge.

“Thank you, but we won’t take up too much of your time,” the woman said as she pulled out a notepad and a pen from her shoulder bag. She flipped through the pages until she came to a blank sheet of paper. “Mr. Novak, I’m Missouri Moseley from Child Protective Services. I just need to ask you some questions about what happened yesterday with Ben.”

Castiel frowned. The business-like tone of Ms. Moseley’s voice gave no hint as to what the issue at hand was. He glanced over to Dean, who was leaning against the stove with his arms crossed over his chest, for a clue, but his neighbor’s eyes were focused down on the black and white linoleum. “Oh, ok.”

“Mr. Novak, what time did you arrive home yesterday?” she started as she put the notepad down on the counter by the sink and clicked her pen, setting its nib against the paper.

“A little after five.” Castiel suddenly felt very awkwardly aware of his body, just standing there as Ms. Moseley began her interrogation. He wanted to fidget, to give his hands something to do, but figured that wouldn’t go over very well, and ended up stuffing his hands in his pants pockets to keep from thinking about them.

Nodding, she began to write. “Where was Ben when you got home?”

“On his porch.” He kept his attention firmly planted on the motion of the social worker’s pen.

“Did you offer to watch Ben until his dad came home?” she asked without looking up.

“Yes, ma’am. I first offered to call Dean, but Ben couldn’t remember his number and I didn’t have it, so I brought him inside.” He probably should have asked Ben where his dad worked, and then maybe he could have looked up the business’s phone number online or in the phone book. Now he felt really dumb for not thinking of that last night. It would have saved a lot of trouble for all of them.

“What did you and Ben do while he was here?” Ms. Moseley paused in her writing to look up at him. 

“We had a snack. Then I helped him with his homework and fed him dinner. We read in the living room until Dean came home.” 

“What time did Mr. Winchester come home?”

“Sometime around seven.” 

“Did you see anybody come up to the Winchester house after you brought Ben in?”

That was an odd question. He’d been too busy keeping Ben occupied to keep an eye out for nefarious figures lurking in the boxwood bushes next door. “No.”

“Did anybody knock on your door during the time Ben was in your home?”

“No.” That was an even stranger question.

“Could you have had the TV on too loud to have heard somebody knock?”

Castiel gestured towards the living room where the bookcases and piano took up all of the available wall space.. “I don’t have a TV.”

Ms. Moseley nodded again and turned back to her notepad, but didn’t ask any more questions. When she was finished with her documentation, she gave him another a kind smile. “Thank you, Mr. Novak, both for your time today and for looking out for Ben. I know Dean really appreciates what you did for his boy. I hope you have a good weekend.”

“Thank you,” he said uncertainly as Dean ushered Ms. Moseley to the door with a promise to _be right back_.

Castiel grabbed the carafe from the coffee maker and filled it with water from the sink to start a fresh pot of coffee, guessing that Dean might appreciate having something warm to wrap his hands around even if he wasn’t thirsty. By the time the front door open and closed again, the water was gurgling through the grounds in the filter and Castiel had put away the rest of his groceries.

“I am so sorry to get you involved in this,” Dean began as he walked into the kitchen, running a hand through his hair. “I just…I don’t know. This whole situation is seriously fucked up and for once I’m glad my kid is staying somewhere else for the night so I don’t have to deal with it while he’s around.”

“Ben’s ok, though, right?” Castiel inquired as he pulled two yellow and black striped mugs from the cabinet. 

Dean smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, he’s fine and we talked about what happened. I made a card with all of my contact information and pinned it inside his book bag so he won’t lose it and hid a spare key where he can find it, so he can at least get into the house if something happens and he’s by himself again.”

“What about you? Are you ok?” Castiel stepped over to his side, hesitating before laying his hand on Dean’s shoulder. The man looked like he seriously needed somebody to lean on for just a little while.

“I have to be,” he said with a little shrug.

They stood in silence while the coffee maker spluttered and belched through the last bit dripping down into the pot. Castiel poured coffee into both mugs and held one out to Dean. “Cream or sugar?”

“This is good,” Dean replied, accepting the offering. “I should go. I’m sure you’ve got plans and I really didn’t mean to disrupt your evening.”

“I’m sure Ernesto the pizza guy won’t mind delivering two pizzas instead of just one, if you’d like to stay and talk,” he said walking over to the fridge to grab the carton of half and half. His plans were the same that they always were on Friday nights – to have pizza delivered, change into his pajamas, and then settle down with either a book or his laptop and Netflix. Sometimes Charlie convinced him to head out directly after work for trivia night and half-priced appetizers at the sports bar on campus or to sit in on her monthly D&D campaign, but more often than not, he went into hermit mode at the stroke of 5 o’clock on Fridays. Tonight, though, the lure of learning more about Dean and Ben was more appealing than the documentary on Richard III sitting in his queue.

“Are you sure?”

Castiel studied Dean for a moment as he stirred the cream in his coffee. To answer Dean’s question, he hooked his hand around the man’s elbow and guided him to the armchair in the living room to sit. Taking up the corner of the couch closest to the chair, he said, “I’m all ears.”

Dean took a fortifying sip of his coffee, wincing when it was still a touch too warm to drink, before starting. “CPS got an anonymous phone call this morning that I had abandoned Ben all night last night. Whoever called said they saw Ben sitting out on the porch by himself when they were driving by, and then when they drove back by a little while later he wasn’t there. They stopped to see if we were home, but the house was dark and nobody answered, then they knocked on doors in the neighborhood to see if they could find Ben or if anybody had seen me come home.”

Castiel frowned as he set his mug on the coffee table to cool. “Why would someone wait until morning if they thought a child was in danger? Why wouldn’t they immediately call the police?”

“Normal people probably would, but not vindictive bastards who want to make other people miserable,” Dean bit out before sighing. “I’m just lucky Missouri got hold of the call before anybody else did. She’s like family to me and Ben. She’s turning the investigation around and trying to pin point where the anonymous tip came from. We have an idea of who did it.”

“I am so sorry, Dean.” 

“Yeah,” Dean shrugged. “I thought things were starting to settle down for us. Guess not, huh?”

Then, Dean admitted, “Ben’s grandparents have been trying to take him away from me. They don’t see me as his dad, even though he’s mine, biologically and legally. Not to mention they didn’t even have anything to do with him until a few months ago anyway.”

“Did you find out what happened with your sitter?” Castiel was starting to get a bad feeling that the whole mishap yesterday had a been a setup. He couldn’t begin to imagine the stress that that event had caused for the man sitting in his living room.

“Yeah,” Dean snorted mirthlessly. “She’s claiming her mom didn’t tell her that I asked for her to come by after school to look after Ben. Julie’s as sweet as pie and Ben’s mom loved her so much. She and Lisa were cousins, but the girl’s mom is a piece of work. Too much like Ben’s grandma. I wouldn’t put it past her to have not told Julie on purpose and probably to have been the one who made the call to CPS. Apparently I can’t trust anybody on that side of Ben’s family to keep his best interests at heart.”

“Are you sure you can trust the people Ben’s with now?”

“100% sure. Mikey Bennett’s parents aren’t the type of people that the high and mighty Braeden’s associate themselves with. The kid has two moms, like Ben.” Dean smiled.

That tidbit of information made Castiel’s heart flipflop. He must have had quite the look on his face, because Dean launched into the story of how he and Ben came to be in the house next door – from his long-time friendship with Lisa and her parents disowning her, to her marriage to Anna, to the two of them deciding they wanted to start a family and asking Dean to help, to the fatal car accident and Dean dropping everything in Sioux Falls to be with Ben in Pontiac, to the lengthy court battle that should never have taken place, to Missouri’s staunch support of Ben staying with Dean, and finally to them moving out of Lisa and Anna’s place and finding a house of their own.

“Wow,” was all Castiel could say when Dean finished. He felt extremely bad that his brain had immediately interpreted the fact that Ben had two moms as meaning that Dean wasn’t a grieving (and very straight) widower who was completely off the market. Now, all he wanted to do was keep father and son safe and happy from the ills of the world.

“Yeah,” Dean huffed before draining his coffee cup. “It’s been one hell of a year. I love Ben with all my heart and I don’t for one minute regret moving here so he can stay at his school and be near his friends. Hell, I want him to be close to Lisa’s family because I know what it’s like to grow up without any blood-kin. But…” He frowned, lips pursed together as he stared into his empty mug. “I…I miss my folks back in Sioux Falls. This would be a lot easier if we were closer to them.”

Castiel reached over to place his hand on Dean’s jean-clad knee, his heart breaking at his neighbor’s confession. “I’ll be here for you and Ben. If either of you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thanks, man,” Dean said gruffly as he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and blew out a heavy breath. The solemn moment was interrupted by his stomach letting loose a mighty growl. “Apparently I need that pizza you talked about earlier.”

Castiel chuckled and stood up from the couch to call in the order. “Extra large meat lover’s ok with you?”

"The more meat, the better.” Dean gave him a half-hearted lecherous grin.

When he came back from the kitchen, Grace had hopped up on the back of the chair and was nuzzling the side of Dean’s neck while he scratched under her chin.

“Grace, get down,” Castiel flapped his hand at the cat, but she wouldn’t budge. He grabbed her under her belly, but she dug her claws into her new friend’s t-shirt (thankfully not getting hold of any skin), determined not to let go. “I’m sorry, Dean. Ben said you’re allergic.”

“It’s not so bad with this one so far. I’ll just pop a Benadryl when I get home if I start to get itchy.” He reached up to pry his shirt from Grace’s claws. “Some cats I’m fine around, some I can’t even be in a room they’ve walked through. It’s like that with Ben’s grandma’s cats. Can’t set foot in the house without sneezing my damn head off. I have to throw Ben in the tub and his clothes in the wash as soon as he gets back from visiting with them.”

Castiel wrapped his arms around the fluffy gray and white cat, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before sitting back down on the couch with her in his lap.

While they waited for the pizza to arrive, they shared the random bits of information that new acquaintances usually divulged about themselves. Castiel told Dean about his job in the university library, about his mom who was a professor of theology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, about his cousins Gabriel, Balthazar, and Hannah who had been close enough to him growing up that he never wondered what it’d be like to have siblings, about how every year he tried to read more books than the previous year, but had read only 56 books so far this year because he had resolved to go out more often, about his co-worker Charlie and how she renewed his childhood interest in science fiction and fantasy.

When the pizza guy knocked on the door, Dean jumped up from the chair and insisted on paying. Castiel put up a feeble attempt to dissuade him, knowing that Dean would have his way in the end. They spread out the pizza boxes on the coffee table and ate off paper plates so nobody would have to worry about washing dishes later. Castiel pulled a couple of beers from the fridge, the drinks having had time to chill thoroughly in the time since he got home from the store. Once they were settled with their supper, the conversation started up again.

Dean told Castiel about his younger brothers – Sam who was a junior associate at a law firm in Sioux Falls and had just married his college sweetheart back in February and Adam who was a sophomore in pre-med at the University of North Dakota at Sioux Falls and had spent most of his summer helping Dean and Ben settle into their new house (Castiel vaguely recalled seeing a lanky blond kid hanging around the Winchester house several months ago), about his best friend Benny who ran a diner in Sioux Falls, about his uncle Bobby who gave the boys a place to stay when Adam’s mom, Sam and Dean’s stepmom, died a month and a half after Dean turned 18, about his current job managing a garage and his wonderful boss, Garth, who had given Dean a lot of flexibility in his work hours when he was spending his days in court fighting to keep his kid.

It was almost midnight when Dean’s phone rang, interrupting his story about the time his brothers initiated Ben into the annual Winchester prank war and they all learned that Kool Aid stained porcelain. He set the half a beer he’d been nursing for over an hour down on the coffee table next to their empty, bright orange grease stained paper plates before pulling the vibrating phone from his pocket. 

“Hey, Siobhan,” he said, standing up from the chair. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. No, no, it’s no problem. I’m not surprised. See you in a bit. Bye.”

“Everything ok?” Castiel asked as he started piling the trash into the empty pizza box.

“Ben wants to come home. I figured he wouldn’t make it all night, not after what happened yesterday, but he was determined to go.” Dean smiled, shaking his head. “I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing he wasn’t in the room next door anyway.”

Castiel walked Dean to the door. “You are both lucky to have each other.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said as he paused on the threshold. “Look, I really can’t thank you enough for what you did yesterday and for tonight, too.”

“Anytime, Dean,” Cas offered with a smile.

There was an awkward moment where neither of them seemed to know exactly how to end the evening. A handshake seemed too formal. After all they had shared in the past 24 hours, they were well past that stage. Yet, it felt too soon for a hug. Castiel was relieved that he didn’t have to come up with the answer when Dean reached out to clap him gently on the shoulder.

“See ya around, Cas.”

Castiel nodded. “Tell Ben that I said hello.”

Dean smiled, big and bright making his eyes dance in the dim porch light. “Will do.”


	3. Chapter 3

The weekend passed too quickly as usual.  Castiel, being his typical hermit-self, didn’t set foot outside at all on Saturday or Sunday.  He spent most of his time, lazing around the house in his pajamas and perpetual bedhead either reading, playing his piano, or watching National Geographic documentaries on his laptop curled up in bed with Grace.

 

There had been a time or two (or six, he wasn’t counting) on Saturday afternoon that he spied his neighbors in their backyard from his kitchen window as he fixed food or poured himself a cup of coffee.  Ben had a sturdy wooden swing set that he played on for hours at a time while Dean either sprawled out in a lounge chair on the patio thumbing through a stack of magazines or joined him in whatever game the six-year-old had made up.  Castiel didn’t want to think about the reasons why father and son seemed to be stuck to each other like glue, neither out of sight of the other while they were outside soaking up the golden sunshine of early fall.

 

On Sunday just after lunchtime, he washed one plate for five solid minutes while he watched Dean hoist Ben up on his hip to show the boy something under the open hood of the big black car parked in front of their open garage.  The gesture pulled such a strong sense of longing from somewhere deep inside that Castiel had to press a wet, soapy hand against his chest to ease some of the ache it caused.  He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he was pining for, whether it was for not having shared something like that with his own father, for not having a child of his own to share his knowledge and passions with, or simply for wanting to be part of the moment with Dean and Ben.  He’d pulled the blinds closed and stayed away from the kitchen window after that.

 

As Castiel backed out of his driveway to start his work week, his neighbors stepped out of their front door: Ben dressed for school in jeans and his red hoodie with his knapsack strapped to his back and Dean barefoot wearing black and gray plaid pajama pants and a form fitting white t-shirt.  Castiel waved before changing gears and received two very sleepy greetings in return.  The gesture warmed him better than the travel mug of hot coffee sitting in the console at his elbow.

 

The day was like any other Monday.  He got straight to work on the requests for materials that appeared the box outside his office over the weekend.  One of the tenure-track assistant professors in the history department was working on a book about the Hessians in the American Revolution, and Castiel had a four-page list of primary references the guy was hoping to get digital copies of without actually having to traipse all over the East Coast to see firsthand.  His entire morning was spent writing emails and making phone calls to his contacts at other university, public, and private libraries to see if they had what his colleague was looking for.

 

At precisely one o’clock a familiar red-head appeared in the doorway of his office. 

 

“Heya, Cas,” Charlie bubbled with a wave.  She was the library’s expert for restoring and preserving the older books and manuscripts in the collection.  Castiel loved getting to visit her in the vault where the rarest books were kept.  Charlie often said it was like working in the restricted section in the library at Hogwarts, only without fear that one the books might try to eat somebody.  “You ready to grab some grub?”

 

Castiel hit send on the email to a grad school classmate now working at UNC Chapel Hill that he’d just finished proofing and grabbed his khaki trench coat from the hat stand behind his desk.  “Yes.  I am _starving_.”

 

“Forget your breakfast again this morning?”  She began to dig through her purse.

 

“I left it on the counter at home and by the time I finished reading my emails when I got in there were no more bagels.”  In all the time that Castiel had worked in the library, there was always a tray of bagels waiting for the staff first thing every morning.  When he asked around to see who brought them so he could offer some small compensation for their thoughtfulness, he was told to not seek out the _Bringer of Bagels™_ ; they were an anonymous donor, who wanted to remain just that.

 

Charlie held out something wrapped up in a neon yellow paper napkin.  “To tide you over for the walk down to Stackers.”

 

Castiel pulled on his coat before he took Charlie’s offering.  Inside the napkin was one of her oogey, gooey homemade double chocolate chip cookies.  He immediately took a huge bite out of the cookie, groaning with pleasure. 

 

“Fanks,” he said appreciatively through a mouth of crumbs.

 

“Watch yourself, cookie monster.  Don’t choke,” she warned with a laugh as they headed out of the basement where all of the librarian offices were located.  Once they were up on the street and Castiel had successfully wiped away all traces of the cookie from his mouth, Charlie asked, “So, how was your weekend?”

 

 “Same ol’, same ol’.”  He shrugged.  His neighbor’s troubles were not things he was willing to gossip about, even with a close friend.

 

“Ugh, piano practice and documentaries,” Charlie said with a huff.

 

“There absolutely nothing wrong with either of those hobbies,” he retorted.  They had the same argument after every weekend where he secluded himself away from the rest of the world to recharge for the coming week, but he did appreciate that she always made the effort to get him to try new things despite the rut he didn’t particularly want to get out of.

 

“I like to tickle the ivories and obsess over _Hoarders_ just as much as the next guy, but not every single weekend.  You really should have come down to the Parker Street Library with me for _Sci-Fi Saturday_.  It was so much fun!  There was a _Star Wars_ marathon in the media room and a costume contest, the family in full Klingon regalia won, and a potluck and book signings from some local sci-fi authors and the kid’s reading club put on an original play they wrote about a triceratops who goes to Pluto, and Dorothy was there…” Charlie paused suddenly in her gushing about the library event to sigh. 

 

Castiel smiled at the dreamy look on her face when she mentioned the dark-haired head librarian of the public library just a few blocks away from his house.  “Have you asked her out yet?”

 

“Uh, no.” 

 

“Chicken.”

 

“You can’t just ask a woman like that out on a date and expect her to say yes.  I have a very structured strategy in plan prove to her that I’m worthy of her time,” Charlie said defensively.  “Unfortunately for you, that strategy involves me recruiting volunteers for next weekend’s _Fantasy Fete_.  I’m taking you with me if I have to physically drag you out of bed on Saturday morning.”

 

“Well, I suppose if this volunteering will be done in the name of love, then I can’t refuse.”  Castiel jogged a couple of steps ahead of Charlie to catch the door to the little sandwich shop down the street from the library before it shut behind a group of students leaving the establishment.

 

“Awesomesauce!  You can borrow some stuff from my LARP trunk to wear.”  She gave him a cheeky grin and punched him gently on the upper arm as she passed through the doorway.

 

Stackers was Charlie and Castiel’s favorite weekday lunch spot; it wasn’t too unusual for them to end up eating there every day of the week if their schedules lined up.  The lunch rush was mostly over.  The tables in the dining area were still pretty full, but the queue at the counter was only two people long. 

 

“Hey!  Librarians!” the blond kid at the cash register called out with a big grin when he saw them.

 

“Librarians!” somebody called, unseen, from the open kitchen window.

 

When they finally got up to the counter (the two girls in front of them spent three minutes debating which was better: the #6 with a pickle or the #8 with a side of pasta salad), all they had to do was swipe their credit cards at the terminal and pick up their orders. 

 

“Life goal accomplished!  I have become a regular somewhere and they know my order as soon as I walk in,” Charlie proclaimed, dancing over to the far end of the counter to grab her tray containing a double-decker tuna melt on whole wheat, a pile of homemade potato chips, and a large lemonade.

 

Castiel thanked the worker who stuck an extra portion of honey mustard and a plastic fork next to the mile-high turkey club sandwich on his tray before trailing after Charlie as she weaved a path between chairs and tables to a booth at the window.  They tucked into their lunch, enjoying the first few bites of their sandwiches in comfortable silence.

 

“I was wondering,” Charlie started after dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin.  “What are your thoughts on dating?”

 

He supposed it was Charlie’s burgeoning interest in Dorothy that had her thinking about his love life.  They’d both been mostly single for the four years they’d known each other.  When he first met Charlie, she’d been in a long-term relationship with a woman named Gilda, but something had happened and the two had broken up a few months later.  Castiel wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but Charlie had been so upset that she’d sworn off getting that close to somebody again.  Dorothy must be extra special if Charlie was working to foster a more intimate relationship with her in the not-too-distant future.

 

Castiel took a long pull of iced tea from his straw.  “It all depends on what kind of dating you’re talking about.”

 

“What if someone were to set you up on a date with someone they knew?”

 

“A blind date?” he asked, brow wrinkling skeptically.

“Yeah,” she answered, shrinking behind her sandwich as she took a bite.  After chewing quickly and swallowing, she pressed forward.  “I just thought it might be nice, if Dorothy and I ever get together then maybe we could double date, or something.”

 

“Charlie, you don’t have to worry about me being lonely while you go off with a girlfriend,” Castiel reassured.  “I’m perfectly content to be left at home by myself.”

 

“Maybe I’m not worried about you,” she said quietly.

 

“Oh.”  Charlie was nervous about going out on a date without any support.  He gave his best friend an understanding smile and nudged his foot against the side of her boot under the table.  “I’ll be your wing man.”

 

Charlie perked up immediately, her smile brightening the whole café.  “I’m not sure if it’s still called being a wing man if I’ve already secured the date.  But, don’t worry.  It’s not like I’m gonna drop some stranger in your lap for dinner and movie this weekend.  I still have to get up the courage to ask Dorothy out first.”

 

Castiel held up a finger with a sudden thought as he groped through the pockets of his trench coat, looking for a pen.  When he found one, he grabbed a clean napkin from the stack in the middle of the table and hastily scribbled down a drawing.  Once he was finished, he handed it to Charlie who chuckled, but looked pleased at the gift.

 

“You are now a member of the _Legion of Courage_ ,” he proclaimed with a broad grin.

 

“Oh, shucks,” she gushed dramatically, clutching the napkin-doodle to her chest.  “I’m speechless!”

 

After she tucked the napkin carefully into a notebook from her satchel, she tapped her chin.  “I wonder if Dorothy likes the _Wizard of Oz_.”

 

They giggled before turning their attention back to enjoying the rest of their lunch hour.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to my dear readers! You are lovely! I tumbl over at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nephilimsgrace.


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